Dimitri Driven

by May Ball, Alice

  “Oh, I’m always like this when I’m kidnapped.”

  “Did you happen to notice that somebody drove onto the sidewalk with the intention of killing you?”

  “Did you notice that you were on the same sidewalk? It’s a lot more likely they were trying to kill you, isn’t it?” I’m speaking through my teeth. “But, did you happen to notice, right after somebody may have tried to kill one of us, that somebody did drug me. They kidnapped me and I woke up strapped to a chair, ready for torture. Why the fuck would I trust you?”

  His sarcastic grin still seems to be in place. “Did you happen to spot that I saved you from pretty certain death? Twice, in fact. There was the matter of a determined man with a gun.”

  I’m not going to admit that he has a point.

  “You could just be stringing it out. Playing with me. Ready to kill me later.”

  “Don’t think I’m not tempted.”

  “Give me back my bag and my phone.”

  “Later.”

  When he finally cuts the ties and lets me out of the chair, my forearms and my calves are cold and stiff. I have to shake my legs before I can get up. My feet tingle.

  I rise unsteadily to stand. My legs are weak at first. I sway and topple. He catches me. His huge hands are strong, but he’s tender. Gentle. My hands reach for him. Crushed against him, just for a moment, my fingers spread on his chest. He’s so big. And so hard. A sigh swells from deep down in my core and rises through my throat like a breath of longing.

  And… pressed against my soft stomach… a huge, hard hump.

  He lifts my chin. Holds my face and looks in my eyes. Studying. Thoughtful.

  I’m woozy. His deep voice rouses me.

  “We going to walk out of here,” he tells me, “Along a corridor, then we’ll turn left down another and into an underground car park. You’re going to sit in the back of the car, and we going to take a drive. Please,” his dark eyes glow as he peers down into my face. Why the hell does he have to be so hot? “Please don’t make me apply restraints to you. I won’t do it unless you force me.”

  “That’s what all the best torturers say, big Russian.”

  The torture room, or ‘interrogation suite,’ as he likes to call it, turns out to be in something like a self-storage facility. All of the walls are corrugated aluminum. The corridors are roofed in corrugated aluminum with cement floors.

  A dull, hollow echo, like sticks on an iron fence, follows us down the two long passages.

  His black SUV has blacked out windows—of course—and he puts me in the back. Makes me put on the seatbelt. Tells me he can fire the airbag at will. It’s probably true.

  When we drive out, we fetch up in the wilds of Adams Morgan. From the expensively discreet instruments on the dash I can see that it’s 10:43 when we get onto Florida Avenue.

  We wallow and nudge slowly through stodgy evening DC traffic and wind our way into Georgetown. He snakes through the terraces and turns onto O Street.

  As he drives, he reads from his phone. “We’re headed for a brownstone. A detached Georgian townhouse on three floors.”

  “Sounds adorable,” I’m looking out at the traffic. All the people driving. All going places they want to go.

  He says, ”It looks nice, although we’ll be spending most of our time in the basement.”

  “Imagine my surprise,” I tell him.

  A few hundred yards farther on, we’re passing a line of crouched men along one side of the street. They’re wearing body armor and black helmets. It looks like most of them have assault rifles. I start to speak. He says,

  “Don’t look round. Don’t move. Keep your eyes forward.”

  He doesn’t speed up, he doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t look left or right. We drive straight on by and turn off for the Francis Scott Key Bridge. We cross the Potomac. Slate gray clouds streak the blue velvet sky behind. Silvery light reflects from the moon on the water, but I can’t see it in the sky.

  As we cross the river, I start to ask, “So, all of those armed men—“

  “They were going where we were going.”

  “And that’s why we’re going somewhere else now?”

  A shiver ripples through me.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  He just keeps driving. He slips a phone into a cradle in the console. Dials a number. A ringing tone comes on the car audio system. Before it’s answered, he’s put on a headset and cut the car audio.

  We’re headed through North Highland, but I have a sense that he’s circling, like a plane waiting for a landing slot.

  Speaking in an effortless, cut-glass English accent, he says, “Bilterburg Corporate Location?” He listens for a moment. Then, ”Hello, is that Randy? I think we spoke before.”

  “Yes,” he says, “it’s Richard Carrigan here. We’ve spoken about corporate rentals in your portfolio… Yes… Hello, Randy. Are you well? … That’s good … Oh, I am glad. Now. I’m looking to locate a small corporate headquarters. Short term, but quite short notice. I’m wondering if you have something that’s currently available like your 3209D Riverside property.”

  He pauses, listening. Driving. I watch his face, gently illuminated by the instrument panel. His mouth has relaxed, and his cheeks have lifted. I’m watching his eyes. Steady but more relaxed. Sparkling with concentration but somehow lighter. Who is this man?

  “Yes,” he says, “Thanks. I’d like to take a look. Subject to viewing, could I take possession right away? I’d like to make preparations for the tenants as soon as possible.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. Listening. Then he laughs. It sounds like a perfectly natural, real laugh. But it doesn’t belong to him. He has become a whole other man. I’m in the presence of a real acting talent. Can this bastard get any sexier?

  “Yes, Randy. Mm… Thanks ever so much for that, Randy. If you text me the key code details, I’ll take a look this evening, then I’ll text you to let you know. Between you and I and the gate post, though, I’m pretty sure it’s going work out just fine.” He listens some more. I feel him, playing the man on the other end like a fish. Then, “Yes. Let me check that I’ve got the account details right. I’ll send you a text with the bank codes that I’ve got. Just let me know if they’re correct. If you could reply with the price quoted monthly and quarterly, in case there’s a variance.” A pause, “Thanks… Yes, you’ve been fantastic. I can’t tell you how helpful this is.… Indeed. And you, Randy. Thanks ever so.”

  Under my breath, I’m saying, “Who the fuck are you?”

  He doesn’t answer. The expression on his face doesn’t change. All I see is one quick flick of his eyes into the rearview mirror. When his eyes catch mine, it’s like an electric shock. Like a depth charge goes off way down inside me, with a low, delayed boom.

  “Seriously,” I say, “killers, guns, there’s what looks like a private army out looking for you. Kidnapping, safehouses, torture rooms – I mean it, who the fuck are you?”

  His eyes looked back at me again. The buzz is intense. On the edge of pain. And I fucking love it.

  “It’s safer for you if you don’t know.”

  “Look,” I’m trying to keep the shake out of my voice, “For all I know you’re trying to kill me just like all of the rest of them are. Or, like you say they are. How do I know it’s not you that’s trying to kill me, and they are coming to rescue me?”

  Even though all I can see is his eyes, I see them pull up the sides and I know that sarcastic hint of a grin without even seeing the rest of it.

  “I think the fact that you’re not dead yet is a bit of a clue. I could have killed you in any one of the moments that we’ve been together. If I had wanted you to be dead, Chrissy, I would be having this conversation alone.”

  “Okay, you’re not going to tell me who you are. So what the fuck are you—a spook, an assassin, a crook, a spy? What? And what the fuck are you doing kidnapping me?” I’m holding down a rising boil of panic in my chest.

  “Do you know
who I am?” I ask him, “I am precisely fucking nobody. I’m a girl who studies art and plays the cello.” He’s watching me. I know there’s no way I can fool him. I go on, “I’m a musician who is never going to be remotely famous. I’m an artist whose big skill is cleaning up old pieces of art by other people. Why the fuck would there be lines of men after me, looking like ants with fucking assault weapons?”

  Now there’s a tremor in my voice. “Look, you know my name, I suspect you know everything there is to know about me. Who the fuck are you? Who is my kidnapper, the man who’s driving me on a wild goose chase around the streets of DC? Who is going step up and say, ‘Hello, I’ll be you captor tonight’?”

  I’m trying to make it into a joke to calm myself down, and it all came out wrong and made me feel worse.

  His voice is so thick, deep and solid, I feel like it could hold me. “Chrissy, you don’t have to worry. I’m going to protect you.”

  Like a fucking little idiot, I want to believe him.

  Chapter 6

  Him

  “THERE WERE A LOT of men out there on O Street,” I’m telling her, “This would definitely be a good time for us to get off the street.”

  “For you to get off the street, you mean.”

  “They’re the same people as the man who tried to run you down.”

  “How do you know?” Her voice cut into my veins. The light in her eyes and the breath and chest aroused me from deep within. I didn’t see any way for this to get easier. “Why should I believe you, anyway? They could be the FBI for all I know. They could have gone there to rescue me.”

  “Would you like me to head back and let you out? You could turn yourself in to them.”

  She sniffs. Thinks about it. Comes back, still snappy, sharp. But now it sounds like she’s having to put it on. Play it up.

  “Would you? I mean, if I asked you, would you?”

  I watch her face in the rearview. “It would save me having to worry about you. Shall I take you back to them?”

  A cloud of confusion passes over her face and her lips pinch.

  “Give me my bag and my phone.”

  “Later.”

  She sits back into the corner of the seat and turns her head to look out of the window as we drive.

  I’m figuring a route to the house by the river, avoiding major roads where I can. These DC districts are tricky to navigate. But I don’t set a SatNav, obviously. Too easy to track, too much forensic evidence. Keeping the map of the city alive and awake in my head, it’s an exercise that keeps my concentration sharp.

  Still looking out of the window, she says, “So. Are we doing all of this so that you can get back to the serious business of torturing me?”

  A little chuckle escapes from my throat. “The fact that I saved your life and now I’m keeping you safe, you aren’t going to let that bother you at all.”

  “Oh—this is all for me? Really, you shouldn’t.” She folds her arms. Turns her face to glower into the mirror. Anger makes her hot. “Why don’t you just ask me whatever it is that you want to know, anyway? Maybe I’ll tell you.”

  Her defiance, her spirit is really something. She is a true force of nature. Any red-blooded Russian man would fight, kill, and gladly die for a woman like her.

  If it weren’t for the circumstances, I would, too.

  “You must be hungry,” I tell her. “We’ll get food on the way. Do you like pizza?” I pull an untraceable burner phone from the glovebox.

  “What kind of a question is that?” She huffs, “Everybody likes pizza. Only a Russian wouldn’t know.”

  I find a pizza shop a few blocks from the house. And a small grocery between here and there.

  I’ll order pizzas online and they should be ready to collect when we get in the neighborhood.

  I tell her I’ll get a dozen, and I ask her what toppings she likes as I start to tap an order into the phone.

  “A dozen pizzas?” She brings her knees up under her chin as she rocks on the back seat. “Even you can’t eat a dozen pizzas.”

  “We’ll eat what we want while they’re hot,” I say, “and put what’s left in the fridge. Have some of them cold or heat them up again. Cold pizza’s okay, isn’t it?”

  In the mirror, her knees are up over the bottom of her face. My chest fills. She is adorable. She’s nodding. “Sometimes better on the second day.”

  From the grocery store I can get produce for salad; leaves, salad onions, tomatoes, cucumber, as well as coffee, unsalted butter, coconut oil. And ice cream.

  “We can stay safe inside for some time. We won’t starve.”

  I still haven’t heard back from my queries to Library Services. I have a bad instinct about their failure to reply.

  I tap out a quick follow-up message, nothing to give too much away, nothing to say.

  I send a quick message to Pipeline, too. Pipeline controls the money so, as a Russian operation, they are always at least double staffed. That way there’s at least one man to watch the other. I send them a query that won’t raise any eyebrows. Just a routine inquiry.

  Pulling up in front of the store I ask her, “Do I have to lock you in the car, or, if I let you come into the store, will you behave?” I don’t want to leave her behind in the car. I’m swept by a physical urge to protect her and care for her.

  Inside, the store is bright and colorful. She blinks a couple of times as she darts around the aisles. I tell her to pick out half dozen tubs of ice cream.

  “What flavors do you want?”

  I ask her, “What flavors do you like?”

  She frowns, “Ice cream flavors, silly. Vanilla, chocolate, chocolate chip, cookie dough.”

  “Pick up the flavors that you like.”

  At the checkout, she peers into the basket. “You look odd. You, huge in your suit,” her eyes rake over me as she says it, “A wire basket over your arm. You look like Arnie in Kindergarten Cop.”

  “Coconut oil?” She says, “Do you need to condition your hair urgently?”

  “Strong coffee, unsalted butter, coconut oil. It’s a boost for concentration and energy. Never tried it?”

  She shakes her head. “Butter in coffee? Sounds disgusting.”

  “It can take some getting used to. The first couple of days, you might feel a little strange. Your stomach has to adjust.”

  “I don’t think I’d like it.”

  “Try it. You might.”

  The cashier smiles to herself as she’s takes the items from the basket.

  “Get me a candy?” Chrissy holds out a Snickers bar.

  “I’ll get it for you,” I tell her, “but don’t eat it before the pizza. It will ruin your appetite.

  “I’m starving. Half a horse wouldn’t ruin my appetite.”

  “Trust me.”

  “Well, you know I can’t do that.”

  As I’m bagging up the salad, tomatoes, cucumber and everything else, Chrissy leans down and tells the blonde with big hair on the register, “He’s going to murder me. He’ll torture me first.”

  The blonde keeps looking at me. “He can come back and do me when he’s finished you off.”